Let's use math to talk about sexism!
A lot of things get in the way of arguments about sexism in male-dominated spaces like gaming, tech, comics, etc. Among the most prevalent derailing techniques are common arguments like "Not all men are like that," "But some women are sexist too," or "You're being too emotional about this, let's talk about this rationally." Much has been said about why all of the above are nonsense...but let's just pretend for a little while that they're not. Yep, you heard that right: let's pretend that men and women are equally sexist, misandry is a thing, and that having emotions about things that are hurtful isn't permitted.
Even in that obviously nonexistent world, women in male-dominated spaces still receive far more abuse than men. Why? Because Math.
The premise of this argument, called the "Petrie Multiplier" is simple. Imagine that men and women are both equally sexist (pretend misandry is a real thing) and that only a small fraction of individuals are sexist (i.e., not all men are like that), let's say 20%. Let's ignore all feelings and simply focus on the frequency of sexist remarks (quit being so emotional!)
Now add in one caveat: men outnumber women. This plays out rather interestingly.
Imagine a population of 40 men & 10 women, where 20% of all people are sexist. That means you have 8 sexist men, and 2 sexist women. These 8 sexist men are going to spread inappropriate comments to the 10 women, and each woman ends up on the receiving end of a lot of abuse. Meanwhile, the 2 sexist women are spreading their abuse out among 40 men...so each individual guy gets very little abuse, and potentially never receives a single inappropriate comment.
The moral of the story is simple: diversity is important. It only takes a very small percentage of bad eggs for a minority group to be on the receiving end of a lot of abuse; the best solution is to increase representation of minority groups.
Follow the link through to see some excellent animations of this principle in practice!